Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Faces Struggle in Congress

WASHINGTON — Prospects for Congress to authorize repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy face new uncertainties as time runs out for the Senate to act and strong objections remain among Republicans and the most senior ranks of the military.

The murky picture on Capitol Hill comes even as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said for the first time that he would like to see the Senate vote to authorize the repeal before the end of the year, and a not-yet-released Pentagon survey of active-duty forces and their families shows that the majority do not care if gay men and women serve openly, which the policy forbids.

The new commandant of the Marine Corps does care, and he was swiftly rebuked after making unusual comments about troops’ sleeping arrangements over the weekend.

In the meantime, a federal appeals court in California is considering whether the ban is constitutional.

The possibility that Congress will not act this year has further aggravated tensions between gay rights groups and President Obama, who campaigned on a promise to allow gay men and women to serve openly.

One is the simple matter of the Congressional calendar. There will be very little time in the lame-duck session that begins next week for the Senate to vote to authorize the repeal of the policy and reconcile its measure with a version passed by the House.

The other obstacle is in the concerns of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee. Although Mr. McCain has said in the past that he would consider authorizing a repeal of the law once the Pentagon review was complete, he faced a challenge from the right in his recent re-election fight and campaigned, in part, on a promise to preserve the 17-year-old law that requires service members to keep their sexual orientation secret. Mr. McCain, 74, a naval aviator who was shot down and imprisoned in Hanoi in the Vietnam War, has continued to press against repeal.

Mr. McCain and other Senate Republicans blocked consideration of a defense bill in September that included a provision allowing repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and in recent days he has been in negotiations with Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, on whether the “don’t ask, don’t tell” provision should be stripped from the bill entirely.

The White House communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, issued a statement saying the administration opposed stripping the provision from the annual military policy bill and remained committed to ending the ban.

Gay rights groups have said that if that occurs, repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” would be difficult if not impossible this year and even more unlikely in 2011, when Republicans will be in control of the House.

The Pentagon is due to make public a report of how to carry out a repeal — including the survey of its active-duty forces — on Dec. 1, which could create momentum for repealing the ban. But the Senate may run out of time, given urgent issues including the expiring Bush-era tax cuts and a spending measure to keep the federal government running.

The chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force have all expressed some reluctance about ending the ban, as has the former commandant of the Marine Corps, but the comments of the current commandant, Gen. James F. Amos, are the most vivid to date.

In comments to reporters in California this weekend, General Amos said that ending the ban in the middle of two wars would involve “risk” for Marines, who, unlike other service members who generally have private quarters, share rooms to promote unity. “There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women — and when you talk of infantry, we’re talking our young men — laying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers,” said General Amos, 63. “I don’t know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that’s what we’re looking at. It’s unit cohesion, it’s combat effectiveness.”

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General Amos and the other armed service chiefs are reviewing a draft of the Pentagon survey.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen effectively rebuked General Amos when he told reporters in Melbourne, Australia, “I was surprised by what he said and surprised he said it publicly.” Admiral Mullen, who supports repeal, also called General Amos on Sunday night to speak directly with him about the comments, said General Amos’s spokesman, Maj. Joseph M. Plenzler. Major Plenzler said he did not know the tone of the call or specifics about the conversation.

Mr. Gates, in his own comments to reporters en route to security and diplomatic talks in Australia, said, “I would like to see the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ but I’m not sure what the prospects are and we’ll just have to see.”

On Capitol Hill, Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said Mr. Reid remained committed to the repeal.

“He, of course, can’t do it alone,” Mr. Manley said. “The senator needs Republicans to at least agree to have a debate on this issue, a debate he firmly believes the Senate should have.”

Gay rights groups said that they would continue to pressure Mr. Obama to push the Senate to act. “Obama’s central promise to the gay community was to get this law repealed,” said Richard Socarides, who was an adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay issues. “If he can’t deliver on this, one way or another, through repeal or court action or executive order, all bets are off.”

Mr. McCain and Mr. Levin did not provide any details about their discussions of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the defense bill.

Tara Andringa, a spokeswoman for Mr. Levin, said in a statement on Monday that “Senator Levin has been discussing with the Defense Department when the report relating to the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, due to the secretary of defense on Dec. 1, will be made available to Congress and the public, and he has also been discussing with Senator McCain how to proceed.”

Most Democrats support the repeal and at least one Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, already voted in favor of authorizing the repeal in committee proceedings.

Mr. Reid could try to bring the defense bill to the floor under an open amendment process, a move that Republicans presumably would not block but that would mean committing a large block of time to debate. In that case, opponents of repeal would not be able to pass an amendment stripping it out of the bill.

A version of this article appears in print on November 9, 2010, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: REPEAL OF POLICY ON GAY SERVICE FACES STRUGGLE. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe